Up country buses wait the passengers at Ubungo bus terminal yesterday.The speed governors that the Traffic Police Department have been pushing to to be installed in all public transport vehicles would cost a total of Sh46billion, The Guardian on Sunday can reveal today.Amid growing criticism over the police's sudden move over the past three weeks to ensure that all passenger buses are installed with speed governors, The Guardian on Sunday has confirmed that each speed governor costs about Sh1.5million plus another Sh500,000 for installation on each bus.Tanzania has a total of 23,000 big and mini buses currently on our roads. According to the pending Traffic Police order, which was strongly opposed by bus owners, all passenger buses are required to have speed governors starting this week.Speed governors regulate the top speed and/or maximum rotation per minute(RPM) of a vehicle. The devices are meant to protect drivers from operating vehicles at unsafe speeds, or to protect cars from driving beyond their physical or mechanical threshold.The devices were first introduced in Tanzania in 1998 in order to curb the escalating number of accidents, but they proved a failure once drivers discovered how to tamper with them.Following the failure, police traffic and bus owners abandoned the devices until three weeks ago, when a new order was issued ordering that all passenger buses be equipped with the speed governors.But, this week, the Tanzania Bus Owners Association (Taboa) vocally opposed the order, saying it was another white elephant project aimed at benefiting a few key individuals. In the face of this public pressure, the Traffic Police Chief put his order on hold. What puzzles many is that the importation and supply of these devices is dominated by a few individuals who have connections with some traffic officers, a source within Taboa told The Guardian on Sunday.The source, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation from the regulator, added: It's very clear who is pushing this deal and why now some individuals want to make billions using the same project that failed a decade ago. Taboa's argument is that there are more serious safety issues that need to be addressed by the Traffic Police Department before jumping into another costly and difficult to monitor project.For example, in the three years since the Police Traffic Chief first mandated that all passenger buses made with lorry chassis shouldnt operate on Tanzania roads, most buses on the road have continued to defy that order.The order came after vehicle inspectors in 2007 discovered 130 fake passenger buses in Dar es Salaam that were made with lorry chassis, which are considered unsafe for public use.With details showing that nearly half of the 23,000 buses on Tanzanian roads are made of lorry chassis, the Police Traffic Department has failed to act on its order.Both the Tanzania Bureau of Standards and the Surface and Maritime Transport Regulatory Authority (Sumatra) has put the blame on the Traffic Police Department, which they say should be held responsible for inspection and issuance of road-worthiness certificates. The Guardian on Sunday has reliably established that close to half of the buses on Tanzanian roads were imported as lorries before their owners conspired with traffic officials to convert the cargo vessels into passenger buses.According to reliable sources inside Taboa, it is cheaper to convert an imported lorry into a passenger bus rather than ordering a brand new passenger bus. New passenger buses cost between $70,000 and $90,000 depending on the model and manufacturers. Currently, most modern passenger buses used in Tanzania are manufactured in Brazil, Sweden, Germany and South Africa.It remains unclear when the government plan to completely outlaw buses with lorry chassis will come into effect, despite a six-month notice issued by the police authority two years ago.Efforts to reach Kombe for comment this week were futile as his phone went unanswered. But Taboa has said that converting lorries into passenger buses poses a threat to peoples lives and the association's chairman said he would ensure that his members use only legitimate passenger buses.Taboa chairman Mohamed Abdullah told The Guardian on Sunday that the association aims at improving services in the transportation sector and it urges the government to seriously take action against the owners of shoddy buses.Our main task is to ensure that services are offered at credible standards, and that rules and regulations are clearly observed, he said. Using lorry chassis is very dangerous as they are not designed for that purpose. Unfortunately these lorries upon which buses are built are imported as used vehicles, which means that they were discarded in their countries of origin.Last month the Tanzania Bus Drivers' Association (TBDA) accused Sumatra of issuing licenses to lorries for carrying passengers. The drivers claimed in their statement that Sumatra had been licensing trucks to carry passengers, and that as a result bus owners had been importing trucks which they fit with bus bodies, which the drivers' association said was dangerous and unfair. When contacted for comment this week Sumatra spokesperson David Mziray said that licenses were issued on the basis of inspection reports conducted by traffic police.Tanzania Bureau of Standards spokesperson Rhoda Kayumi also said the matter fell under the jurisdiction of the Traffic Police Department and that the TBS only provides technical assistance when it is required.SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY